Research Questions: What separates the MLB’s top hitters and
pitchers? How do the number of strikeouts and hits vary by position in
the MLB’s top players? Which top pitchers threw the most strikeouts and
walks in 2022?
Baseball is a sport that is driven by statistics. Data is collected on
every aspect of the game and each player has countless statistics that
attempt to quantify their productivity. These statistics are used by
team executives, coaches and fans to make decisions ranging from what
players to sign to the team or trade for, who to start in an important
game or which team or player to bet on. As avid sports fans, analyzing
baseball data seemed like a natural choice. We focused our analysis on
the players who played in the 2022 Major League Baseball (MLB) season.
The goal of this analysis is to determine what separates the MLB’s top
players from one another. Specifically, we examined the number of hits
and strikeouts for the top 25 hitters and the number of walks and
strikeouts for the top 25 pitchers in the 2022 season.
The data used in the analysis was scraped from the website Baseball
Reference which is commonly used for baseball statistics and history.
For the purpose of the analysis, hitters who had less than 25 plate
appearances or less than 10 games played were removed as we wanted to
focus on the top players. Similarly, pitchers with less than 10 innings
pitched or less than 7 game appearances were also removed. For both sets
of data, the top 25 hitters (sorted by most hits) and pitchers (sorted
by most innings pitched) were selected to be used in the data
analysis.
The first plot illustrates the top MLB hitters in 2022. The most
efficient hitters will fall in the bottom right quadrant of the graph as
they have the most hits with the fewest number of strikeouts. Freddie
Freeman of the LA Dodger led the league with 199 hits, however Luiz
Arraez of the Minnesota Twins had the fewest strikeouts of these elite
batters. Of the 25 batters displayed, eight of them received post season
All-MLB honors and both the American League MVP (Aaron Judge) and
National League MVP (Paul Goldschmidt) are featured on the graph.
Furthermore, the graph is colored by position. Shortstop, first base and
third base each have six of the top 25 individuals playing that
position. Individuals who play first base, third base or shortstop
account for 72% of the top hitters in the MLB.
The second plot focuses on 25 of the MLB’s top starting pitchers in
2022. The most efficient pitchers will fall in the top left quadrant as
they have the most strikeouts and the fewest walks. Gerrit Cole of the
New York Yankees pitched the most strikeouts at 250 and Aaron Nola
pitched the fewest number of walks at 29 for the Philadelphia Phillies.
In the postseason awards, 8 of the 10 all MLB Team starting pitchers are
featured on the graph. Furthermore, the National League Cy Young Award
winner, Sandy Alcantara, is displayed. Another key statistic featured in
this display is the pitcher’s wins and losses. When hovering over a
point, the wins and losses are displayed. Zac Gallen had the fewest
losses at 4 while Framber Valdez had the most wins at 17. While wins and
losses are more indicative of the team’s complete performance, it is
still important to note which pitchers have the most successful
records.
While this data analysis examined a collection of the MLB’s top players,
it only scratched the surface of baseball analytics. For both pitchers
and hitters, a plethora of statistics are calculated to determine what
players are the most successful. Examining statistics like batting
average, on base percentage and earned run average could be insightful
in making conclusions about who the top baseball players are.
Furthermore, the decision to select the “top” players by number of hits
and number of innings pitched is subjective and using a different
statistic would yield different results. Ultimately, top hitters will
get more hits and less strikeouts while top pitchers will get more
strikeouts and less walks.